ACADEMIE

Abstract

The conflict of expectations which centres in the university has always existed. Abelard had his difficulties with the lay society in which he lived, and student riots against the faculty were not unknown in the Italian universities of the middle ages, that time which is so often advanced as the hey‐day of the well‐organized academic life. It is obvious, however, that within the last few years in Britain, the conflict has become if not more severe, at least more overt. Also, as the universities in Britain inescapably become larger and physically more complex, the direct action produced by the conflict of immediate expectations has become more public. It may even, on occasion as at LSE, paralyse the day‐to‐day functioning of the institution as an administrative structure. Such physical paralysis in turn offends the expectations of those who believe that they are paying for a piece of machinery, which may be seen to be in order by the regular movement of its parts, and be heard to work by the reassuring repetition of familiar sounds. It is rather a dismal fact, that these complex physical structures, like some lumbering dinosaurs, seem at present grossly affected by apparently tiny hostile activities. All this is to view the present pressures inside these institutions wholly as the result of the personal will of different interest groups, and indeed this is a useful picture for many purposes, though it is not the only, nor even a completely satisfactory one. It is a useful way to see the forces acting on a university teacher in Britain now, by looking at one's own expectations and how one sets out to achieve them. This puts a personal view into perspective, stimulating some of that ‘disinterested criticism’ that is rightly thought to be part of the academic life. It is a distinctly uncomfortable kind of introspection.

Citation

Ross, A. (1969), "ACADEMIE", Education + Training, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp. 188-189. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb016131